Sent E-mail to Hubby

I finally created an e-mail I was okay enough with to send to hubby Saturday night. I had decided I wasn't going to say anything about it and let him bring it up when he was ready to talk about it. This has worked well for us in the past. After 2 conversations with him post sending the e-mail, I cracked. I was so nervous of his response that I finally just asked him if he'd read the e-mail. His response, "Yeah, I read it yesterday. Thanks for being so honest and for working so hard to keep me in the loop. I'm definitely praying for you." And that was it..... subject changed.

It totally wasn't what I expected, but I'm not complaining either. I figured he'd have more questions or want to talk about it, but he seemed perfectly content to know I was keeping him in the loop and that I didn't need him to do anything other than pray. This man continues to surprise me. He understands very little about emotions, behavioral health, etc. yet he never seems to waiver no matter what new info or crazy situation I send his way. It is truly amazing, and I feel so blessed. Now, I like to talk, so I would have liked a conversation about the e-mail I sent him, but I'm not going to complain that this is the outcome. He hasn't treated me any different since and for whatever reason, he really really trusts me. If I say I'll be okay, he takes it at face value. It's kinda new to me to have someone this close to me take my words at face value. It seems most people (including myself) are looking for deeper and/or hidden meaning in what I'm saying or not saying. It's an odd experience for me but very refreshing at the same time.

In other news, we saw therapist again today. She checked in with me a bit and then spent most of the rest of the session with A. Bless, we have our work cut out for us. I continue to be amazed at the amount of work and progress that therapist is able to make with A. during our sessions, however, we always seem to have to re-teach and go over some of the basic things A. learned or accepted the last session. Permanency in what she learns these days is still lacking. Still it is progress. And while it's progress that feels like it's ripping my guts out, I am very thankful to have therapist and a couple of good friends I can talk to about all of this instead of feeling utterly alone and without a clue how to progress towards healing.

Therapist gave A. a tiny little bear tonight to keep. It's something from the present day. It's something that was not around when were a child. It's something that will hopefully help keep her grounded and out of flashbacks more b/c it is a gift from therapist that requires no gift or payment in return (a new concept for A) and it is something that did not exist when the body was being hurt. A. is already pretty attached to the little guy/gal (keep switching back and forth on whether it looks like a guy or a girl stuffie). I posted a pic below so you can see. I have a feeling it's going to be going everywhere with us for a little while, but I don't care if there's the chance it can help to calm things down inside for a bit.

She Used to Appear So Big and Fierce

This post is sort of a follow-up to the last post in that it's an update of what took place after Monday's therapy session, but it also delves a little bit more into my DID world and into the history regarding the part I discussed in the last post that is struggling so much. To make it easier, I'm going to call this part "A.". That's the first letter of her name. I realize that giving you her name probably wouldn't give too much away, but my anonymity with this blog has always been important to me, and I want to treat her with that same respect until the time she decides she wants to share her name with anyone. So, thanks, and I hope this doesn't make this post too confusing.


Until very very recently, A. has always presented as larger, taller, stronger, and more fierce than any other part or any external person in our life. In all honesty, since we've met her she's appeared internally as large and as strong as the Jolly Green Giant - except she wasn't green. She's also appeared in adult form on the inside. I never knew her age b/c time doesn't mean much to her, but she spoke and talked as an adult and had quick wit. She towered over all of us and had the strength to take over the body at any point and do as she pleased. For many many years I was very afraid of her.

Over the past couple of years, it's continued to be like pulling teeth to get her to really share anything, but what I have learned has been invaluable. While she has mostly presented as a part whose goal has been to harm the body, in reality she is probably one of my strongest protectors. She was present for the worst of the abuse. She struggles the most with the mind games he played. She protected the rest of us from him during the worst moments. As we began to share about the abuse as an adult, she would lash out - hurting us emotionally and physically. I've come to realize though that in her mind, she was protecting us. He told her telling would mean that everyone would hate us... telling would mean we'd have to go live with him forever... Off and on throughout therapy she has presented at times to 'protect us' from lies he made her believe. This protection has always been brought about by fear, force, and injury to the body on her part up until I got married last May.

She sort of went silent around wedding time. She was so against the wedding and I was fearful that she would sabotage not only the event but my future with the man that I love. At the time I assumed she was so resistant b/c the thought of willingly having sex freaked her out. Now I know it runs much deeper than that. She's pretty much stayed silent the last 8 months. I would wonder about her, but I was loving feeling mostly good and being married, so I didn't take the time to look into it too much.

After husband deployed 3 weeks ago, I immediately started noticing an increased level of activity inside and a spike in my anxiety levels so extreme that I thought my heart my burst. Until Monday I was still in the fog about the exact reasons why. I knew it had to do with A., but I had no idea how or what bomb she was going to drop this time. Monday she told therapist that we were no longer safe. She told therapist that he was coming back to get us. A. told therapist that he told her multiple times while hurting her that she belonged to him. If we ever grew up and got married, we'd broken our covenant to him and he would come find us and make us pay. With hubby home for the past 8 months, this fear hadn't made it's way to the surface b/c we felt safe with hubby - almost like he was an external protector, and I think A. felt like he would protect us from the bad man if he did show up. Once hubby deployed, though, all bets were off. Hubby is gone for a long time. A. felt abandoned and wide open for an attack.

A. crumbled in fear and sadness in therapist's office on Monday, and even with therapist close by, A. never stopped shaking. It took the 2 hours to get A. out of freak out stage and to begin the process of trying to convince her that he will not be coming to get her or any of us b/c we got married. It's going to be a long road.

After therapist brought me back forward and got me stabilized enough, I drove home. It's about a 45 minute drive to my home from therapist's office, so I had a lot of time to think and talk to myself. I got a report from other parts that A. never made it back to her internal house (for as long as I've known her, she's been unwilling to share a house with any other parts) and there was a fragile girl around the age of 9 that no one recognized lying on the ground close to A's house. I let another adult part drive the car home safely, and I went to investigate. Looking closely, I realized it was A., but she barely resembled any other form I've ever seen her take. The eyes are really the main clue that gave away that it was her. She looked so frail and tired and she just lied there and quietly sobbed barely even acknowledging any of us.

I couldn't leave her there. Seeing her like that was breaking my heart in a way I've never felt before. I picked her up in my arms, and surprisingly she didn't resist. I took her to the large house where everyone else hangs out, and put her in an empty room with a comfy bed all her own. Since that time all she's done is sleep, cry, and stare at who knows what. She will briefly respond to you if you talk to her, but she won't converse.

How does the part that was the strongest, largest and fiercest go from that to one of the weakest and most fragile parts in the system? And wow! what a turn around! Guess we really are going to have our work cut out for us for awhile. My head is reeling from the internal shift, b/c even if she is fragile right now, she is still very strong emotionally and it's very hard to not get overpowered by her emotions and try to support her where she is right now.

Wow. This post got way longer than I meant for it to. I'll stop here for now and pick up again in a bit.

wall of ignorance down; 20 new walls up

I guess I got a bit of insight today in therapy. A lot of things are still fuzzy and unaswered, and I'm doing my best to not fill in the blanks b/c I tend to catastrophize when I do that, but it's hard not to.

Yesterday I blogged about feeling clueless about what's going on internally and wondering if that was a good thing or a bad thing. Today I learned that the reason I can't hear anything internally is that a part I haven't heard from in over 2 years has put up walls among all of us. We are all isolated from each other. A younger part managed to find her way out during therapy today and explain to therapist how scared and alone she was and that she couldn't hear anyone else inside. While this part was talking, I actually did a little bit of internal exploration (I know. Shocking that I would do this on purpose.). It seems as though we are all walled off from each other and even moreso that I am the only part that has access to the external world easily.

Therapist started talking about possibly moving these new walls or finding ways around them to restore internal communication among parts. Her theory is there is fear and adjustment issues regarding some of us doing so well and other still struggling so much, thus the seperation and changes inside. I could go along with that except that I switched out to another part neither of us has heard from in a couple of years who stated that the walls were not to be moved and were to be left alone. She was adament about us not meddling with things.

I am sure this part isn't purposely trying to hurt us. Last time she was present, she appeared as an introject and put our safety into question multiple times. With a lot of work and extra therapy help, we were able to get to her true identity and understand that he had created her to do and say such things should we ever reach a certain place in healing. We helped her understand how he had manipulated her and that what she was doing was actually hurting the body not keeping it safe. Once she understood the differences, she was very amiable and wanted to be helpful. Then she just went quiet.

With her back again and causing a complete blackout on internal communication, it's hard for me not to think she's been triggered to "sabotage" again. I do believe like last time we can show her the truth and we can work through this, but I don't trust her at all right now as far as acting out goes. And if this does play out this way, husband's gonna get a good does of DID dysfunction rather quickly into our marriage. It's strange that I fear more for him right now than for me. Not fear as in I/we might hurt him physically. But my gut is telling me that the purpose of what's going on internally now is to disrupt what is currently a very happy marriage.

See, when I fill in the gaps, I do sort of catastrophize, but it's really hard not to when I'm going off of past experiences. The major thing I do have going for me this time around is that through prayer and the examples of friends, I am more convicted than ever to turn this over to God and let him do the major battle.

I have full faith that things will be okay on the other side of this and that my marriage is safe. It is founded on Christ after all. However, I think the next few weeks may be a really bumpy ride that I really don't want to sign up for.

But, one day at a time, right?

Part II

In case I'm posting these entries too close together, the first part of this entry is entitled: Clear as Mud.

Assuming default mode passes in time, we've got to come up with a way to handle the current situation. A couple of ideas come to mind, but I don't know if they're good ones or not. Obviously, therapist and I will continue to work on things in therapy and she can talk with parts who have fears, concerns, memories, etc.

The other options I have so far:
1. Keep boundaries the way they are, inform fiancee of my fears, and pray harder than I ever have that God will take care of all of our needs so that sex is not the issue I see it being right now by the time our wedding actually rolls around.

2. Talk to fiance about the possibility of relaxing our physical boundaries a bit so that we can continue to slowly adjust to being more physical with him over a longer period of time.

While I truly believe my God is great enough to allow the first to happen, both of these feel manipulative towards fiancee on my end. Either I think he's not totally going to "get it" until after he says, I do. Or I'm asking him to potentially adjust his moral standards for my benefit.

And again I default back to how this whole situation would just be easier if I wasn't alive. Fiance could find a girl who can love him with all of her, who won't always having her past come up and bite hard during times that are supposed to be the happiest, who won't always feel so needy and insecure whether she tells you about it or not.

I know for so many years I walked around this and even more turmoil on me and held down a job and/or school, frienships, etc, but right now, for the life of me, I have no idea how. Things are shut down here tomorrow because of snow, and I am so thrilled that I don't have to go anywhere or be anything b/c honestly, I don't feel I could fake it right now.